It does not seem like this really exposed any new information - Twitter publicly justified its actions as being about its hacked data policy back when this all happened ( https://www.nationalreview.com/news/twitter-cites-hacked-mat... ). All this shows is some internal disagreement as to whether that was the right call. By the way, Facebook also suppressed the news story citing its misinformation policy ( https://www…
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598827602403160064 Biden team asking Twitter to "handle" tweets they don't like. This rubs me the wrong way, nobody in government should be telling Twitter to remove speech.
To clarify, Biden was not in gov't at the time of the emails being sent to Twitter.
Did you read your own source? The Biden team never asked Twitter staff to “handle” anything. They forwarded tweets that [violated twitter’s ToS][1], a Twitter staff member forwarded them for review, and at that point the reviewer said they “handled these.” That’s what content moderation is supposed to do! [1]: https://twitter.com/parkebench/status/1598841731763810304
The fact that they listen to the government requests is the scary part. They should just have a consistent content moderation policy and enforce it.
This was not a government request. No one who asked Twitter to remove these tweets on behalf of Biden was in government. Biden was not in government at the time.
1- Biden wasn't in government, he was running for office. Private citizen at the time. 2- They weren't telling, they were asking, and if Twitter feels like they were told, they can sue the government for violating their First Amendment rights.
The point isn’t that Twitter felt compelled. Isn’t the point that Twitter happily complied, and even made up reasons to censor the stuff they thought was the most damaging “in order to prevent another 2016”.
1- Biden wasn't in government, he was running for office. Private citizen at the time. 2- They weren't telling, they were asking, and if Twitter feels like they were told, they can sue the government for violating their First Amendment rights.
picking apart semantics is not sufficient to allay concerns expressed in parent
Please elaborate on the semantics you're referring to. The comment above seems to make a point about the context in which the tweets were removed. They do seem to allay those concerns you mention.
What was the content of the "handled" tweets, though? I think that matters a lot. For example, the RealJamesWood tweet (from [0]) seems to be a leaked nude of Hunter; it was most likely (safe to say) posted non-consensually, and I don't really see a big difference between that kind of tweet and revenge porn. Having "stuff they dislike" removed would be one thing, but using the direct line at Twitter for reporting exp…
Lots of people talking about ToS as if it's applied consistently and without bias. Let's assume that the oft-storied "pee tapes" were real, published by a mainstream news outlet and posted to Twitter. Would those same individuals regurgitating ToS violations agree that should receive the same treatment, or would they have been complicit in spreading it as far and wide as possible?
the life of a politically inconvenient story: 1. it's conspiracy theory 2. it was obvious to everyone 3. forgotten
I don't understand why this is a story to begin with. Twitter is a private company that does what it wants. It can boot or block whoever or whatever story they want to for whatever reason. Obviously if the people running the site lean towards one political direction, that's going to affect their moderation policies. Why don't we analyze Fox News's decision to run or not run certain stories. People's first mistake is…
2. it was obvious to everyone
...
I don't understand why this is a story to begin with.
Does it though? I don't think a campaign staff pointing out tweets that might violate the TOS counts as collusion. That's just a campaign interfacing with Twitter the same way everyone else does. If it was collusion, then every white house press briefing in history would be too. Which, sure, might be Chomsky's point of view, but I don't think anarchists need to be convinced that Joe Biden is bad.
It's not "the same way everyone else does". We use the Twitter web UI's Report button. We don't have contacts in Twitter's Orwellian "trust and safety'"division. I can't tell if this is bad faith or ignorance. Alex Berenson was unsuspended after he sued Twitter (unbannings were unprecedented, as this was before Musk's takeover), after he proved that Biden staffers had demanded his suspension. Government employees and…
It makes sense for them to have expedited handling for ToS violations that affect a public or political figure. Otherwise a very easy exploit would be to simply have people keep reposting them, relying on there always being a few that haven't been taken down yet.
I'm a moderate, not a Democrat and not a Republican. I think people on the left have a blind spot here, that the more suppression they use, the more division they create, and the more moderates and people on the right grow to resent them. I would have identified as a Democrat on pretty much every issue, but this authoritarian suppression of speech and ideas has just pushed me away from that side completely. At this p…
> I'm a moderate The Overton window in the US stems from center-right (Democrats) to extreme-right (Republicans) so if you're in the middle of that you're firmly a conservative. Don't believe me? Example: we've got the ongoing threat of a strike tby rail workers who want paid sick leave . They currently have no paid sick leave. Calling in sick will come off their vacation days. It may even get them disciplined and fi…
I think something a lot of people miss is the difference between Democratic voters and Democratic politicians.
Democratic politicians generally lean substantially farther right than their voters.
"Centrists" typically take the position that Democratic politicians are too left-leaning. This puts them very far to the right of the Democratic voter. It puts them much closer to... Republicans.
Politicians should never be able to directly influence the moderation of social media items they find politically unfavorable; I don't care which party does it. I can understand something that involves direct threats/calls to violence, but that's about it. Anyone that has used Twitter for some time knows the moderation was often not all that even, not just by pure political means but also threats of violence etc were…
Nude pictures of an individual being distributed without consent isn't politically unfavorable -- its criminal in many places and obscene everywhere. The "laptop" story is a red herring for Trump's crimes and used to cover them up by making up a load of BS to give cover for Republican whataboutism. What I find surprising is the defense many HN commentators are giving to this propaganda, especially those that try to s…
The NY Post didn't post any nude photos, and they were banned. So, your talking point is nonsense. If you weren't a part of either party, wouldn't you want to...idk, crackdown on corruption in both parties? Seems that would be the non-partisan thing to do. Instead of saying "well, what Trump did was worse!" Both Trump and Biden should both be held responsible for any corruption. Hunter getting on the board of an energy company with no experience in the field, and then having email chains lending to a possibility of using his father's influence for business...seems like something worth reporting on and looking into. Just as Trump using his hotel chains to collect money from foreign diplomats should also be taken seriously and looked into, among the other terrible things he's done. Having a D or R next to your name shouldn't shield you from anything.
I'm a moderate Democrat ... authoritarian suppression of speech and ideas both sides suck This is a great expression of what is commonly described as a South Park republican. That is, someone who believes they live in a political space between republicans and democrats which does not actually exist. The fundamental emotion is cynicism, which manifests as active hostility towards any notion of empathy for any other di…